


Fever

by Etheostoma



Category: Beetlejuice - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Maybe A Little Plot, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-19
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-29 19:55:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15736293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etheostoma/pseuds/Etheostoma
Summary: It was evident even to Beetlejuice—self-confessed insensitive and callous asshole though he was—that something was amiss. Drawing his dangling feet back over the side of the couch, he shifted to sit up beside Lydia and toss an arm around her shoulders, applying the barest amount of pressure to her side to guide her into his waiting embrace.Or, Lydia has a crappy day and Beetlejuice makes it better.





	Fever

“Why so blue?” Beetlejuice asked, reaching up to tap Lydia on the nose and shift her skin to a magnificent cyan. He was lounging on the leather couch in her cramped living room, his head in her lap and his legs dangling over the opposite armrest, bare feet with their cracked toenails starkly white against her dark sofa.

“‘M fine,” she murmured, hand clenching around the opposite wrist, her eyes skimming across the page of the book she had propped on her own armrest. Her face was set in a determined frown, teeth unconsciously worrying her bottom lip as she read.

His mouth tightened into a thin line. “Babes,” he protested, exasperated, “you haven’t turned the page in twenty minutes, your eyes have that look you get when you’re trying not t’ fall apart, and you’ve been _blue_ for the last five minutes without catchin’ on.”

There was a pointed silence as Lydia dragged her eyes away from her novel to examine her hands, chocolate-colored eyes rolling skyward as she realized he was telling the truth. She exhaled in defeat, slipping a mark between the pages of her book and tossing it onto the coffee table with a grumpy huff. “Beej, not the time,” she said quietly, releasing her wrist to grab for his nearest hand, drawing it above his head and into her lap. “Change it back?” she pleaded.

The poltergeist grunted an acknowledgement and squeezed her hand, a spot of parchment-colored skin appearing on her pam and expanding outward until she was again a pale, human-colored cream from head to toe.

“Thanks,” she murmured, eyelashes fluttering down to kiss the tops of her cheekbones as she raised the hand she held to her lips and brushed a light kiss to his knuckles.

It was evident even to him—self-confessed insensitive and callous asshole though he was—that something was amiss. Drawing his dangling feet back over the side of the couch, Beetlejuice shifted to sit up beside her and toss an arm around her shoulders, applying the barest amount of pressure to her side to guide her into his waiting embrace. He frowned, drawing her against his chest and tucking her head beneath his chin as he bored a hole in the opposite wall with his glare.

“Whassamatter, Lydia?” he asked again, pressing his nose to the top of her hair. Frivolous and furious and frenzied though he could be, the last few months (years, really, if one were to count the entirety of their unconventional acquaintance) had granted him at least a partial sense of gravity in certain situations. 

He did not like to see Lydia in pain—physical, emotional, or otherwise. She was meant to be happy, content, cheerfully discounting the ignorance and immaturity of the common pleb and causing minor cases of mayhem and destruction at his side.

She sniffed and his heart did an uncomfortable _thing_ that had him frowning anew. “Just a long day,” she whispered, a few tears trickling from her closed eyes and brushing wetly against his bared neck. “I’m a goddamn adult now—I have a full-time job, ay my own bills, have my own apartment. I”m supposed to be beyond letting mundane shit get to me. Hell, I’m dating a poltergeist and spend a good chunk of my time running around the land of the dead—I should have enough perspective not to be affected by the little things.”

Beetlejuice shook his head. “Lyds, you’re thinking about this too much. Shit happens sometimes.” His chest vibrated beneath her cheek as he coughed out a small laugh. “I’ve been around for _centuries_ and shit still gets to _me_ sometimes.” One large hand splayed across her upper back, its partner curling gently around her waist and giving a gentle squeeze. “What happened? Who do I need to kill?” His tone was nonchalant, but his intent was deadly serious, his hand tightening slightly at her waist as his eyes took on a deadly glow.

Hairs tickled his neck as she shook her head from side to side, face still burrowed in his neck. “That’s the thing,” she sniffed, hand fisting in his maroon shirt, “it wasn’t’ anything _big._ It was just a bunch of little things throughout the day that just made it _suck_. I messed up something yesterday and since I was across town on another job my _supervisor_ had to fix it this morning instead of me—I hate it when other people have to clean up a mess I make. And then he was so _nice_ about it.” He could feel her eyelashes flutter against his neck as she blinked away her tears. “I feel like such a fucking idiot, and then I locked my keys in the car at lunch, and—“

  
Beetlejuice’s eyebrows crept toward his hairline as she continued, a fondly amused smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. While pragmatic to the core and typically calm as a cucumber, Lydia occasionally had days where she was seized by a fell mood, overwhelmed by the doldrums of having to maintain a normal life alongside her decidedly more paranormal one.

He shouldn’t find it amusing, and certainly hated to see her unhappy with things, but his relief at knowing that she wasn’t truly in pain, that no one had _harmed_ her, that he would not have to hunt down some pathetic soul and rip him limb from limb until he wept for mercy—

He knew he should empathize. A decent man would be upset on her behalf. A good man would help her talk through her emotions. A better person than he would ease her troubled mind and take her worries upon himself and—

Fuck it. He was _not_ a good man.

Tilting his head down, Beetlejuice angled Lydia’s face upward with a gentle finger on her chin, leaning down to skim a series of light kisses along the now-exposed curve of her shoulder, ignoring her startled inhale as his teeth nipped and his tongue soothed, hands gliding down her shoulders and caressing her sides on their path along her torso. Unnaturally cool fingers slipped under the hem of her black tunic, caressing the soft skin of her stomach and hips before traveling upward, his palms moving in gradually larger circles up over her ribs. He hummed low in his throat, thumbs caressing the undersides of her breasts as his mouth nuzzled along her neck.

Lydia found it patently unfair how quickly he could take her from disheartened and dejected to incredibly, inescapably aroused.

“Beej,” she groaned, dark eyes fluttering open as he continued his caresses. Her hands twisted in his black tie, hovering for a moment as if uncertain whether she wanted to push him away or pull him closer, the tear tracks on her face a fresh reminder of her unpleasant day. But, his touch was insistent and inflaming, sending tongues of arousal curling through her veins, and the latter urge quickly won out. With a mental sigh at his underhanded tactics she yanked him to her with a barely-restrained growl, mashing their mouths even more tightly together and burying her other hand in his messy blond hair.

Some part of Beetlejuice’s mind kept him from gloating audibly about his victory, instead celebrating his conquest (though he’d never phrase it such out loud) by snaking one arm under her knees and the other around her waist and shifting her into his lap.

Lydia made a small noise of discontent as the blazing warmth of his palms (and she still needed to ask him _how_ he managed to generate such body heat) receded from her flesh, but Beetlejuice could feel her smile against his lips at the shift in position and deemed it a worthy sacrifice. He grasped at the hem of her shirt, thumbs sliding underneath to skim along her naval and waist. At her shaky inhale he withdrew them, grinning wickedly against her mouth before lifting the entire garment up and over her head, casting it across the room to land on top of her solitary lamp.

“Beej,” she said again, this time in laughing protest. “Really?” She gave him a stern frown, its intensity offset by the smile crinkling at the corners of her eyes.

“Was necessary,” he retorted, mouth now moving furiously across her neck as he placed a row of kisses along the pale column of skin. He moved down to her collarbone, tongue flitting out to trace a thin line along the hollow of her neck, just the barest touch of teeth scraping against the dip in a delicious rasp.

The day’s troubles melted from Lydia’s mind, condensing and evaporating into a fine mist under her companion's diligent ministrations. She was quite certainly still frustrated at the world in general, and knew quite well that everything had _not_ just magically mended, but—it was really _really_ difficult to remember that when Beetlejuice was peeling off her bra with such a wicked look of delight in his glowing green eyes.

“You are flawless,” he breathed, internally scoffing at himself for giving in to romantic platitudes. His red-tinted fingers trailed across her supple flesh, the cool caress raising goosebumps as he traced a line up to her throat, nipping lightly at the path laid by his hand. His eyes flared, meeting dark eyes hazy with lust before his head dipped down and those wickedly smirking lips began to trail patterns across her breasts.

Lydia drew in a shuddering gasp, one hand fisting in his tie as the other knotted in his wildly-tangled blond hair. “You—“ she ground out, hissing through clenched teeth as he scraped chapped lips across her nipple, “you are incorrigible.”

She could feel him smirk against her over-sensitized skin. “And you love it,” he purred, tracing a delicious pattern just below the waistline of her jeans, nails skimming the flat plane of her stomach. He gripped her waist, fingers curling into her side, nails pressing little crescent-shaped indentations into the supple skin beneath them.

Warmth flooded Lydia from head to toe, burning her from the inside out as his touch set her nerves aflame. She moaned, back arching as she seized his face and drew his mouth to hers in a filthy kiss, tongue diving into his mouth to chase his own across every crevice. She squirmed in his lap, twisting and slinging her leg over his hip so that she now faced him, straddling his lower body and ( _finally_ ) bringing herself into contact with that part of his anatomy that had been so eluding her.

Beetlejuice groaned at the pressure of her warm heat against his cock, his head lolling back to bounce against the couch cushion behind him. “Babes,” he growled, eyes luminescent as he bared his teeth at her.

“Beej,” she returned coyly, fingers nimbly undoing the buttons of his shirt and working it off of his torso to send it fluttering to the floor. His undershirt soon followed, leaving him bare from the waist up, gleaming white skin a stark contrast to the black leather of her couch. Her hands skimmed up and down his quivering sides, coming to curl around his biceps as she pressed herself against his bare chest, the friction between them a delicious, teasing promise.

“You don’t know what you do to me,” he rumbled, scraping his teeth across her pulse point before seeking out her lips once more, biting at her lower lip before diving back in to plunder her mouth.

“I—oh,” she gasped as he flicked a clever finger across a bared nipple, “I think I have a fairly good idea.” She shifted her hips, a wicked glint in her eyes, smirking as he groaned and his hands convulsed at her sides.

Truthfully, the slide of her hips against his was just as pleasing to her, muted though it was through the denim of her jeans, and she repeated the movement, biting back a groan of her own as his reaction rubbed _just so_ against her wet and wanting core.

The clothes needed to _go._

Suddenly her world shifted, tilting sideways and around as she found herself borne down to the cushions by an incredibly aroused poltergeist. He settled above her, sitting back on his haunches and staring down at her like she was an incredibly delectable treat.

“I think,” he leered, unbuttoning her jeans, “it’s time to get rid of these, don’t you?”

Gasping out an agreement, Lydia canted her his to let him slide the pants down her legs and off into the figurative abyss, leaving her clad only in a set of black cotton panties, her alabaster skin glowing against the couch’s leather backdrop. 

Teeth glinting in the muted lamplight, Beetlejuice kissed a wild trail down along her abdomen, one wicked finger slipping beneath the hem of her underwear to draw it down over her hips, dragging the thin strap of fabric down her legs and leaving her utterly bare before him. “You’re so _wet_ ,” he growled, nostrils flaring at the scent of his arousal.

Lydia bit her lip as he pressed a kiss to the inside of her thigh, gasping out a frantic moan as he nipped the tender skin, moving a shade higher each time, his criminally clever fingers delving into the small patch of curls at the apex of her thighs to find her wet and wanting. “And you are _still wearing pants,”_ she bit out, moaning softly as his fingers crept higher, teasing her clit. “Off,” she commanded, eyes flashing as she shifted to grab his wrist, the muscles beneath her fingers taut with poorly-restrained passion.

He gave her a mocking bow and _shifted_ , his lower clothing simply melting off of his body. “Better?” he rasped, leaning forward to lick a long line from her naval to neck. 

“Immeasurably, if cheating,” she returned, fisting her hands in his hair, nails raking across his scalp to weave themselves in the tangle of strands at the base of his head. She could feel the head of his member pressing insistently against her inner thigh and her core throbbed, her body hot and pulsing with want.

Damn but did she have it bad. The sex was great—beyond great, to put it bluntly (and wasn't _that_ a poorly-concealed euphemism)—but their relationship went so far past that. He was her best friend, her confidante, her lover. She could tell him anything, confide in him when she could turn to no one else—

—but right now, her body was wired with lust-filled tension, crying out for release at his hands. “Beetlejuice,” she gasped, hating how breathy her voice sounded, as if she were some wanton, vapid heroine from a romance novel, completely in the thrall of her partner—

—but then he caught her mouth in a blistering, open-mouthed kiss and chased those thoughts straight from her head, his hand gripping her sides with punishing, unyielding intensity. “Easy with the B-word, Lydia,” he rasped against her lips, the curve of a crooked incisor showing as he leered down at her. 

She smoothed a hand down his back in silent apology, then lifted her legs to twine them about his hips, pressing her forehead into his neck. “Please, Beej,” she all but begged.

“Please what?” he insisted, merciless, teeth bared in a fierce, predatory grin, his hands slipping to catch hers and pin them above her head against the mattress.

“Fuck me,” she demanded, her eyes equally as bright, lips curving up in an imperious smile.

His hands flexed around her wrists and his head dipped low in a bow. “As m’lady commands,” he said, and slid into her in one swift move.

Lydia gasped at the suddenness of it, the sense of being completely and utterly filled, the delicious friction and slide of his skin against hers as he moved inside of her. It never got old, this union between the two unlikeliest of people, a homecoming between kindred spirits and the satiation of physical desires previously unknown. Her hands twisted in his grasp as she fought the urge to reach up and yank him completely against her, bury her fingers in his hair and rake her nails across his scalp.

He laughed lowly against her mouth, knowing her intent, and shifted to lave a series of biting kisses across the pale column of her neck. His hips snapped forward, and they both gasped at the sudden flare of pleasure that laced through them, a sense of completeness and heady fulfillment that never grew old. Eyes narrowing, he repeated the movement, all but driving her into the mattress as he pounded out a steady rhythm.

Lydia’s eyes fluttered shut, her breath hitching, a pleasured moan escaping her as he increased the intensity of his movements. “Beej,” she groaned, legs tightening around his hips, “God yes.”

Nipping at her lips, he drove his tongue into her mouth, mimicking the movement of his cock. He could feel his release building, and from the way Lydia’s breathing stuttered he could tell she was nearing her peak as well. Quick as lightning, one clever hand left the wrist it pinioned and slid down between them to find her clit.

“Beetlejuice!” she gasped, eyes flying wide open as she neared the edge of that wild precipice.

“That’s twice in one night,” he said, smirking and slipping his free hand from her remaining wrist to cover her mouth, his other hand and hips unrelenting. His eyes glinted as his mouth moved to her ear. “Once more and neither of us will be happy with the outcome.”

She nodded wildly, head tossing back and forth as her pleasure crested, breaking free in a great bursting wave. Crying out wordlessly against his palm, she lost herself in wave after wave of sensation, his movements never wavering as he saw her through to her completion. His own release soon followed and he gave a low groan, movements stuttering as he came. “Fuck,” he murmured, chest pounding with phantom heartbeats. He let himself collapse on the slim bit of couch cushion between Lydia and the sofa back. “That never gets old.”

Lydia snickered, her now-freed wrists slipping down to curl around his shoulders as she tucked himself into her side, head fitting neatly under his chin. “You men are all the same,” she said, the satisfied timbre of her words and her catlike smile detracting from the sting of her generalization, her grin shifting to one much sweeter as his hands unconsciously traced the curve of her hair along her temple, touch gentle as any she had ever known.

Beetlejuice scoffed against the back of her head. “You think a mortal man could be ready for round two this quickly?” he countered, and she could indeed feel his member pressing insistently against her rear.

Eyes rolling skyward, Lydia shifted slightly so that he was less insistent against her and claimed his hand in both of hers, tracing the deceptively delicate veins that laced his pale skin. “No,” she admitted, “but I am also a mortal woman and I would like to _sleep_ for a while first.” She pressed a kiss to his knuckles and he flushed an interesting green, the gesture moving him more than he would care to admit. “It was a still a shit day, albeit with a very…satisfying ending.”

She could feel his head bob in a nod, and had she not been so tired she would have teased him about his easy surrender. With a snap of his fingers they were tucked upstairs in her bed, Lydia in an oversized black tee shirt and Beetlejuice in a lurid pair of…”Are those Scooby Doo?” she asked, peeking under the covers raising an eyebrow at the boxers he had donned.

  
“What?” he retorted, voice dry, leaning back agains the headboard with a cigarette dangling from between two fingers, “I appreciate irony as much as the next ghost.”

Lydia laughed, snuggling in beside him. “And I appreciate my ghost more than he can ever know,” she murmured, curling an arm around his waist and resting her head on his chest. "Love you, B," she mumbled, already half-asleep against him. His free hand snaked around her shoulders, tracing nonsensical patterns across her shoulders while he smoked, eyes bright in the glow of the cigarette.

He was in too deep.

This had snowballed so much fucking farther than he ever could have imagined. It was a fucking avalanche now, and goddamn it was he in trouble, careening down the slope borne by forces he could not dream of combating. He was supposed to marry the chit and get out, not befriend her through school and then fall in lo—care about her and start a _relationship._ But—

—if this was it, then what better way to fucking go? The world was already on fire around them, what else could they do but burn alongside it? He exhaled, a cloud of smoke filtering up toward the ceiling, and carded his hand through the sleeping Lydia’s hair. “Long as I’m here, Lyds, it’ll be us against the world,” he promised, scooting down the headboard until she was cradled against his side, head nestled against his neck. He extinguished the cigarette with the pinch of two fingers, the light flickering briefly before dying, and settled in against the cloak of darkness with Lydia sleeping beside him. 

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this started as a drabble a few months ago when I had a shit day similar to Lydia's, and then I picked it back up the other day and it ran away from me and became a random, 3500 word PW (much) P. 
> 
> What can I say?
> 
> This fandom needs more slices of life fics anyway, so I let it run away from me quite happily. Hope you enjoyed!


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